The search for heavy Majorana neutrinos

2009/01/31 by Anupama Atre, Tao Han, Silvia Pascoli +1 · 8 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Electron #Gauge (firearms) #Gauge boson #Gauge theory #Large Hadron Collider #Lepton #MAJORANA #Meson #Neutrino #Neutrino Physics Research #Nuclear physics #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Physics beyond the Standard Model #Pseudoscalar #Standard Model (mathematical formulation) #Tevatron #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1126-6708/2009/05/030

published as JHEP 0905:030,2009 · 60 pages, 27 figures, minor changes,some references added, matches the published version

arxiv created 2009/05/07 · openalex publication_date 2009/05/07 · arxiv updated 2015/03/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

The Majorana nature of neutrinos can be experimentally verified only via \it lepton-number violating processes involving charged leptons. We study 36 lepton-number violating (\lv) processes from the decays of tau leptons and pseudoscalar mesons. These decays are absent in the Standard Model but, in presence of Majorana neutrinos in the mass range ∼ 100 \mev to 5 \gev, the rates for these processes would be enhanced due to their resonant contribution. We calculate the transition rates and branching fractions and compare them to the current bounds from direct experimental searches for \dl=2 tau and rare meson decays. The experimental non-observation of such \lv processes places stringent bounds on the Majorana neutrino mass and mixing and we summarize the existing limits. We also extend the search to hadron collider experiments. We find that, at the Tevatron with 8 fb^-1 integrated luminosity, there could be 2σ (5σ) sensitivity for resonant production of a Majorana neutrino in the μ^± μ^± modes in the mass range of ∼ 10 - 180 \gev (10 - 120 \gev). This reach can be extended to ∼ 10 - 375 \gev (10 - 250 mbox\gev) at the LHC of 14 TeV with 100 fb^-1. The production cross section at the LHC of 10 TeV is also presented for comparison. We study the μ^± e^± modes as well and find that the signal could be large enough even taking into account the current bound from neutrinoless double-beta decay. The signal from the gauge boson fusion channel W⁺ W⁺→ ℓ⁺₁ ℓ⁺₂ at the LHC is found to be very weak given the rather small mixing parameters. We comment on the search strategy when a τ lepton is involved in the final state.

Citations

• Heavy sterile neutrinos and supernova explosions
• Semileptonic lepton-number- and/or lepton-flavor-violating τ decays in Majorana neutrino models
• Inverse neutrinoless doubleβdecay reexamined
• Effective Majorana neutrino masses
• Inverse neutrinoless double beta decay (and other Delta L=2 processes)
• Upper Bound on the Proton Lifetime and the Minimal Non-SUSY Grand Unified Theory
• Neutrino masses and mixings and...
• Fermion masses and the UV cutoff of the minimal realisticSU(5)model
• Phenomenological and cosmological aspects of a minimal GUT scenario
• Electroweak-scale resonant leptogenesis
• New Dark Matter Candidate: Nonthermal Sterile Neutrinos
• Trimuon production in ν N-scattering as a probe of massive neutrinos
• Low Reheating Temperature and the Visible Sterile Neutrino
• Charged Higgs boson effects in the production and decay of a heavy Majorana neutrino at the CERN LHC
• Bounds on effective Majorana neutrino masses at HERA
• Sterile neutrino hot, warm, and cold dark matter
• Signatures for Majorana Neutrinos at Hadron Colliders
• Horizontal Symmetry and Masses of Neutrinos
• Decay constants of heavy vector mesons in relativistic Bethe–Salpeter method
• The Family Group in Grand Unified Theories
• Bounds on heavy sterile neutrinos revisited
• Neutrino flavor oscillations without flavor mixing angles
• Signature of heavy Majorana neutrinos at a linear collider: Enhanced charged Higgs pair production
• Classification of effective neutrino mass operators
• Upper bound on the mass of the type III seesaw triplet in an SU(5) model
• Cosmological parameter analysis including SDSS Lyαforest and galaxy bias: Constraints on the primordial spectrum of fluctuations, neutrino mass, and dark energy
• Z-induced FCNC's and their effects on neutrino oscillations
• Explaining LSND by a decaying sterile neutrino
• Phenomenology with massive neutrinos
• Neutrino masses in SU(2) ⊗ U(1) theories
• Probing oscillations into sterile neutrinos with cosmology, astrophysics and experiments
• Searching for dark matter sterile neutrinos in the laboratory
• Effects of new leptons in electroweak precision data
• Lepton number as the fourth "color"
• Sterile neutrinos as dark matter
• Opening a new window for warm dark matter
• Pathways to Naturally Small Neutrino Masses
• PATTERN OF THE APPROXIMATE MASS DEGENERACY OF MAJORANA NEUTRINOS
• Restrictions on parameters of sterile neutrino dark matter from observations of galaxy clusters
• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (in "The Review of Particle Properties" 2004)
• Sterile neutrinos

Cited by

• Probing lepton number violation at FCC-ee
• Inflationary Gravitational Waves and Laboratory Searches as Complementary Probes of Right-handed Neutrinos
• Study of two quasidegenerate heavy sterile neutrinos in rare meson decays
• Search for heavy neutral leptons in final states with electrons, muons, and hadronically decaying tau leptons in proton-proton collisions at √(s) = 13 TeV
• Observable lepton number violation with predominantly Dirac nature of active neutrinos
• Neutrinoless quadruple beta decay
• Resonant CP violation in rare τ ± decays
• Neutrinoless double beta decay and heavy sterile neutrinos